Carlos Baleba could make his Manchester United debut on Saturday, when Tottenham Hotspur visit Old Trafford. The 22-year-old Cameroonian midfielder has yet to appear for his new club since arriving from Brighton in August for £65m ($88.7m), with a further £5m ($6.8m) potentially payable in add-ons. An ankle injury has kept him on the sidelines, and his eventual introduction would come with a considerable weight of expectation attached: many United supporters are counting on him to act as a one-man solution to the club’s early-season problems.
Baleba joined just a few days after United’s opening-weekend defeat to Hull City, meaning he had already seen a preview of the difficulties that lay ahead before he had kicked a ball. His ankle problem then ruled him out as Michael Carrick’s side struggled against Everton, Manchester City and Fulham. The scale of the task facing him has only grown in the meantime. United have won just one of their first five Premier League games and have conceded eight goals.
The midfield Baleba is being asked to improve was the subject of a major summer outlay, with the club spending the best part of $200m (£150m) on revamping it. Andrey Santos arrived from Chelsea, Youri Tielemans left Aston Villa to move north, and Baleba’s capture from Brighton was intended as the final component of a long-overdue rebuild. Carrick has used Kobbie Mainoo and Tielemans as a double pivot across United’s last four league outings with mixed results. Mainoo has impressed, making a case that Thomas Tuchel may have been wrong to deny him an opportunity with England at the World Cup, while Tielemans’s performances have been trickier to analyse.
Statistically, Tielemans’s numbers hold up. Only Noussair Mazraoui and Mainoo are averaging more accurate passes per 90 minutes for United this season, and Tielemans is covering more distance per 90 minutes than any other United player. Yet the team has been far too open in the centre of the pitch. Whether that stems from Bruno Fernandes’s positioning and the freedom he is given as a No 10, from Tielemans’s weakness in defensive transition, or from something else entirely, Carrick has yet to find the right balance.
Baleba has presumably been signed to give that midfield some legs. He is known for his defensive ability and athleticism, as well as his press resistance in possession. “You need the courage to come out with the ball in difficult and risky areas,” he said in a Sky Sports interview. That instinct should encourage United supporters, given the club has lacked a true two-way midfielder for years, stretching back to the latter stage of the Alex Ferguson era. Paul Pogba was signed to be that player but was largely misunderstood by a string of different managers who failed to recognise his attacking instincts.
How Carrick fits Baleba into his new-look midfield is not clear. Mainoo is in the best form of his career, and Santos and Tielemans surely joined United on the promise that they would be key figures. Dropping Tielemans in particular could further weaken United’s ability on the ball. Nor is Baleba a natural creator: last season he ranked seventh among his Brighton teammates for accurate passes per 90 minutes and 16th for big chances created. Some of that was linked to his general struggle for form and fitness, but it is a relevant part of the picture.
On timing, Baleba was included in a matchday squad for the first time away to Fulham on 20 September, before the international break, and played his first minutes in a behind-closed-doors friendly last week. He could feature against Spurs this weekend, most likely from the bench given his lack of match sharpness. Spurs have suffered their own midfield issues this season, with Roberto De Zerbi grappling with many of the same problems Carrick is experiencing, and with Saturday’s match at Old Trafford there could be scope for United to control the centre of the pitch.
On the flip side, if Carrick gets the balance of his midfield wrong, or introduces Baleba before he is ready, it could prove costly. The United manager is under pressure to prove he can point his team in the right direction again, and another underwhelming result could have him fighting for his job. Supporters expecting Baleba to single-handedly fix the team may also be disappointed by what he is able to offer. There is only so much one player can do when his manager is fighting against years of poor recruitment and boardroom mismanagement — but at long last, United may get to see exactly what they paid all that money for.